If you've been wondering how carrier branding may show up on BlackBerry 10 phones, this leaked image that just popped up on the internet gives us a clue. The BlackBerry Z10 on the left shows clear Verizon branding on the upper left corner of the phone. The phone on the right is apparently the AT&T version, but we're not seeing any carrier branding on this one... yet. It's likely this will vary a bit from carrier to carrier.

The Verizon branding is subtle, but effective. We'd rather have our BlackBerry's free of carrier branding, but if you are going to have carrier branding, this location isn't too bad. More than carrier-free branding, we want to see big time carrier support for BlackBerry 10 - whatever it takes to get that done is fine with us.

The image was posted first on Business Insider, and was apparently sourced by a person who's testing both Verizon and AT&T variants of the BlackBerry Z10. The tester also gave his opinion of the Z10, which he said had great build quality, a great screen, a fast web browser (as quick as desktop browser) that supports flash and that the boot up time is less than a minute. These are all things we love to hear.

Reader comments

Verizon BlackBerry Z10 shows its beautiful face!

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dieing to get one in my hands i want carrier free branding i hate this big ugly rogers logo on my 9900 first ever bb with branding. When i was with RIM i got so used to just seeing the BlackBerry name and no branding i loved it i want the same now too.

In my experience the carrier branding can usually be removed with a q-tip and some rubbing alcohol.. takes 10 minutes or so of scrubbing but it gets the job down flawlessly. I've done this on my 9000, 9700 and 9900 with great results.

I might be a little apprehensive to try it on a white model though, as they are generally black plastic coated white, so there's a chance you might damage the finish.

I was actually thinking the exact same thing...I was trying to look at the bricks on the screen to see if one was showing more brick than the other...it seems to be the same, but does look different...ARISTO! lol

Seriously!! Just so everyone knows, I'm going to be THAT GUY, in the carrier store, playing with this thing, everyday after work, lol. Seeing that picture makes me very excited to try some web browsing on the Z10.

The iPhone really missed their chance and the "tall & thin" profile doesn't help with web browsing anymore. Really looking forward to getting my hands all over this thing!

Holy hell, they look massive... not sure I'm digging the size. I always look at the Galaxy phones in store and think the size looks ridiculous. I guess I'll have to wait to see how it feels in the hand.

Well, if it was smaller we would be saying "They could have made it a bit bigger..". From the video I saw released in one of CB's recent blog posts the size looked good in relation to the hand size of the of the guy who did the video. No complaints here. BBring it on, baby! #BB10

Like you said, if them putting branding there helps to get the full carrier support, I’m fine with that.
But still, I hope a little rubbing alcohol does the trick to remove the branding just like it did on the 9900.

phone looks gorgeous! Never thought I'd look at a blackberry again! I love Android, but their hardware is just too big for me and I'm not a fan of Samsung's big plasticy designs! As far as branding goes, it looks disgusting on here, especially being so far to one side! I pray they just keep it on the back of the phone and leave it at that! I would actually contemplate refusing to buy it if I see the logo printed as it is in this photo. Crazy? Maybe, but it does infuriate me to see this non sense.

It's actually amazingly subtle.. didn't even use their brand colors, but a very muted grey as to not draw more attention than the silver Blackberry branding at the bottom... so it kinda seems designed to go along with the phone's design... I feel like I would barely notice it...

It looks so sweet January 30 cannot get here soon enough! The only way RIM fails is if this phone isn't released within 2 weeks of the launch event. The carrier branding on the phone really doesn't matter to me, but Apple somehow gets away without it...why not RIM. I think the size of this phone looks perfect, compared to the iPhone 4/4s in the picture it may look huge, but remember just how small the iPhone 4 is, from previous pictures it is just slightly larger than that iPhone 5 just with a much bigger screen. Looks perfect to me, and the browser runs flash?? Why has this not been stated before, or did I miss it somewhere???

That's the best picture of this new phone that I have seen so far and it is a beauty!!! I'll buy one as soon as someone other than Rogers allows for pre-ordering. I can't get enough pics of this phone! Now if only they would post something for us in a qwerty and have someone say the build and finish is amazing ..............................

I happen to like the size of this phone as it will be replacing my PC for the most part. THe iPhone 5 has enough height but they bombed on width whereas this phone is perfect in every way.

I'm switching to Rogers when this phone becomes available. I typically work DT VanCity and the Telus reception/coverage is disgusting (one bar standing outside). There's just no excuse for that. Co-workers with Rogers get full coverage below ground. Telus and Bell are also sleeping on this pre-order thing... Fail.

Having seen now the Z10 and the likely qwerty model, I think I'm ready to try all touchscreen. If all touch is not for me (love my keys), I'll just switch back to trusty ol' 9800 and ONE HECK of a new media player!!

...certainly better than Sprint in my area where its 3G service can be ridiculously spotty. Granted, Verizon's network is the most advanced. Verizon or AT&T, makes little difference to me because local coverage is the same; either would be an improvement in my daily wireless life.

It's highly unlikely that would be a possibility. Unfortunately, carriers like verizon and sprint only allow phones with their ESNs onto their networks AND they have software that is specific to their networks. You could possibly flash the software and use it on Metro PCS or Cricket, but who knows when the method to do that will be possible.

It'd be much easier to bounce between GSM-based carriers because they will take any IMEI and connection is based off of the SIM card

Two days before the HTC 8X launched on T-Mobile, the carrier stores and customer service were clueless about the device's existence and insisted that I was completely wrong -- T-Mo would never carry it.

Geeze, I hate to see the carrier branding on the front of the device, can't it be placed on the back or something. This really annoys me, take a page out of apple's book darnit! I have to modify my BB so that ugly ass carrier branding doesn't ruin the aesthetics of my sweet goodness sugarlicious Berry!

Even though I'm on AT&T and getting that one off-contract, I hope the Sprint one comes soon, since my friend is on Sprint and wants it desperately. If it comes at the same time or after windows phone 8 devices land on Sprint, or he doesn't like it, he'll get a windows 8 phone.

It would be nice if branding meant that if a lost phone was found that you could return it to the carrier outlet for a $25 finders fee or something like that.

I think the phones look nice but need to see a white phone. Seems like all of the women I know prefer the white phone . I see where other makers will be going for the full spectrum colour look like the Nokia.

Thinking about the X10 again ... we are mainly disappointed because the the screen size. The screen size was limited by the square format or in other words the width. I understand that but X10 could have been taller to retain the track ball but then that might have been a software issue to keep the BB10 compatible. Rim could have done better in explaining the "why " then the negative reactions would have been more muted.

On point re the screen of the X10...settling on the square screen has limited the screen size big time...even havin the same size as the Z10 would hav been more desirable with a much bigger screen and the trackpad if possible..

The Playbook is slow because it loads every driver it might need every time it starts. RIM has said they learned from that mistake for BB10 which is obvious from the claim of a boot time less than 1 minute.

I'm fairly certain that the iPhone 'cheats' on it's boot time. Since you can't remove the battery, there's no real way to tell for sure, but here's my theory. On every BlackBerry I've owned, if the phone goes completely dead, you can plug it in and start powering it on immediately. On both my iPod Touch 4th gen and my iPhone 4 (replaced my broken iPod Touch with the phone for a better build quality. Dropped the Touch once and it split the screen from the backing), if you run it COMPLETELY dead to where it shuts off, when you plug it in there is a waiting period where it tells you that the charge is too low to power up the device. This waiting period lasts quite a while before it will 'start' booting the device. I'm almost certain this delay is not due to charging, but rather due to a background boot process that makes the official 'start up' screen duration a LOT shorter. My guess is that when you 'turn off' an iProduct, that there is stuff that is not really 'off' at all and it's a shortened 'boot' process to turn the device back 'on', almost like an extremely low-power standby setting. Like I said, no removable battery means no way to test for sure...

For some reason something strange happened to my account where, after logging in, (from anywhere) I would get an error message telling me I have to be logged in in order leave a comment when I tried to reply to user's comments... And this is after getting no error message right after logging in. The comment input box also disappeared entirely. Creating a 2nd account was easiest since the issue couldn't be resolved.

Personally I don't care if the branding wraps its self around the device twice and has pink polka dots. I need this tool in my arsenal. And if Otterbox will play nice....branding shouldn't be a concern.

My thoughts exactly. I hope they have one ready to go on release day. As a matter of fact, I hope RIM has all the accessories ready to go. When I first got my 9930, It took Blackberry months to have spare JM-1 batteries and chargers available.

So stoked for my z10....thank god rogers let me pre-order with $40 down.
Also on a side note, all my friends with iPhones seem to be having problems. My Polish friends just bricked itself and my gf's is acting hella strange lately. It's almost as if they know the bb10's are coming and they're straight up scared to death. Kcuf an iPhone!

I Don't care much about VZW branding on the Z10. It can be ignored just like my 9930. What I DO care about is VZW's infamous crapware. I want to see how badly Big Red is going to cripple the Z10. If someone out there has these phones, please boot em up. Show us what we're going to have to put up with from the carriers.

i mean ,i've seen videos with it and it looked really really smaller, maybe its cos i got used to see it smaller that i prefer it smaller..but really i bilieve s3 size is bad, if this comes out bigger i'll still buy it, but wont be happy about it's size

You reminded me of a great point. Will the screen be glass, or remain whatever indestructable plastic I have on my 9930. I really hope it's not glass, because I make fun of iphone users and their spiderweb like screens all the time. I'd hate to have waited so long, just to have the same problem my competitor has. Anyone have insight?

9900/9930's have glass screens. I had a spiderweb 9900 for a few days after touchdown spiking on the floor waiting for the elevator (hand actually got caught in the sleeve of my jacket and then flung out of the snag).

I believe that out of the touchscreen phones, the fullscreen Torch 9860 is the only "hardened plastic" touchscreen device.

I for one think the iPhone5 is perfect. Never mind that Apple is working like a "bat out of hell" to kick the iPhone5s out the door in Spring. Let's face it, nothing say perfection more than that big wonderful "home button". God it's beautiful.

No, no, no...please don't tell me Rogers will brand in the same spot in the front. I was surely hoping it would stay virgin of any carrier branding, though I wouldn't argue much or care less if it was at the back.

OMG! These devices really seem TOO big for average customer (me included). Taking account of awful design of the qwerty devices (leaked photos) I am starting to worry this could be the end of RIM as stand-alone hardware maker.

I'm actually content with the carrier branding. Beats having it where the Blackberry name is. That would be absolutely awful... On a side note... The Z10 on the right does look slightly bigger than the Z10 on the left. Image stretchage maybe?

I'm a Verizon carrier and the winner of the Ultimate BlackBerry Contest in which I won a 64gb Playbook and phone. Glad to see Verizon will be carrying the phone. Can't wait to receive my phone when they come out.

I don't know what other phone you're talking about, I never compared it to anything. Nothing changes the fact that when I buy the phone I'll be "dealing with" how it looks. What does not having changed since intro have to do with whether something looks good or not anyway?

What else did the tester say about the phone?
Was there anything that he didn't like?
Would he buy one?
Please tell.

That's not bad for boot up time
FYI - Boot up time on my crap pod is 47 seconds
On my current BB, it's two minutes 27 seconds .... but mine is loaded with close to 2,000 names, addresses and phone numbers. And thousands of emails. Not sure if that will affect boot time or not.

I'm I the only one leaving the iPhone 5 for a blackberry 10 device, I still have an iPad/iPod for my apps, I bought the play book and use it about the same if not more then the iPad, but iOS has gotten very boring, the last thing I like about the iPhone was Siri and that's sad!. The iPhone 5 is really nice, and I've always felt it and the 9900 were some of the best built phones but something about the Z10 is very appealing, it looks like its on par with the iPhone for quality, maybe ill own both I've already reserved my device so its very likely. Can't wait to see reviews/drop test on these devices.

You don't seem to be. It is impossible to quantify how many will actually do it, but I have come across similar comments several times in various forums/sites over the last few days. People also mention moving from SG3 and Nexus4. I guess we will see in the coming weeks/months.

I have seen a few in the passed few months but somemore stated checking it out or owning both os's, either way im glad I'm not the only one, I do hop blackberry 10 gains good market share, I'm not fond of android and iOS is dare I say becoming stale, plus every since leaving blackberry I wanted it back. I've been follow bb10 a while now, hope rim and bb10 become 2 if not the 3rd top mobile OS.

I'm switching from an iPhone 4. Before that I had the iPhone 3g and I have never owned a BB before, but what I have seen from BB10 to date has convinced me to switch and apparently there is more to come on Jan 30th.

Make this as short as possible... On flight back from Philly to Ottawa, having good conversation with guy next to me about business in general and I started in on why I am such a huge BlackBerry supporter and believer. A few minutes later the guy sitting in front of me turns around and tells me he had overheard my conversation and then proceeds to show me x2 Z10 phones... He handed one to me and told me to try it out but also asked me to NOT take a picture of it... I played with it for a while and was blown away with it. Anyway that was absolutely the best flight I have ever taken and I will be in line to buy one of these the first day it is available. Cheers!

A large portion of people posting think this 1st BB phone is too large. I can understand that since BB has never released a phone anywhere near this big. Not sure why RIM decided to go over 4". This is definately not a phone you put in your jean pockets. Bummer.

What kind of skinny jeans you wearing? I have a 4.5" phone in my pocket right now. The Z10 is going to be a SMALLER phone for me. If it was under 4" I wouldn't even buy it. I might as well have a lame old iPhone. You do realize the Galaxy Note II is selling wonderfully and that is 5.5". 4.2" is on the small side.

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